In general, creating new food or drink recipes involves several processes, namely trying to find new combinations of ingredients, then secondly, upon finding a new combination, trying to apply the new combination in a basic recipe, and thirdly making the basic recipe evolving to a well-balanced recipe and finding the optimum quantity of each ingredient.
Every experienced cook, kitchen chef, or cocktail maker is aware that each of these processes is an extensive, iterative, therefore extremely time-consuming job involving high costs and ingredient waste.
Moreover, another problem is that new combinations of ingredients do not always have the potential for evolving to a recipe for an end product with desired characteristics. In other words, a new combination of ingredients matching with regards to taste and flavor cannot automatically being used in a recipe for an end product with a particular characteristic. Consequently, in a lot cases the effort and cost involving finding new combinations does not result in a new food or drink recipe.
State of the art methods attempting to alleviate the process of finding the optimum quantity of each ingredient of a known recipe are known. For example, US Patent Publication No. 2013/0149679 describes a method for virtually optimizing a known recipe by calculating optimized amounts of ingredients based on target taste and aromatic values.
These methods only allow optimization of known recipes, i.e., recipes using known working combinations of ingredients and known quantities of ingredients more or less achieving an end product with desired characteristics.
Person skilled in the art will recognize that the state of the art methods however do not alleviate the process of investigating new combinations of ingredients, of investigating the potential of new combinations for resulting in a working recipe, of investigating the potential of a new combination for being used in a recipe for an end product with a particular characteristic, and of investigating the potential of a known combination of ingredients used in a particular type of end product for using in another type of end product.
In addition, state of the art methods arc not prepared for or adapted to the following trends and developments in cooking and recipe development for a number of reasons.
Consumers want their personalized food or drink optimized for health, taste, cost, and mood. Consumers and even food professionals don't have the knowledge, nor time to customize a dish for each customer. Kitchen tools will take on this role, but they need to be powered by software that can fulfill the customers' needs instantly.
Food budget for 50% of U.S. families is less than 125 USD per week. A limited budget forces consumers towards more high energy dense and unhealthy food types. There is an urgent need to make cheap food also healthy. Government, insurance companies and food companies try to educate consumers through the use of applications to choose for healthy and tasteful food solutions with limited spending, but they are not able to generate a customized recipe for all.
A vast amount of people have a boring single dimensional food pattern leading to e.g., excess weight gain. 150 million citizens in the U.S. today are living with some form of a chronic disease or have special dietary restrictions. Since, each of those persons wants to have a personalized solution, there is a need for personalized dietary solutions. 80% of cases of cardiac disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and 40% of cancers could be avoided through improved lifestyle choices, including those related to diet (WHO, 2011). For example, when a diabetes type 2 patient is diagnosed, a doctor provides caloric and macronutrient recommendations but such recommendations are abstract to the average individual. Therefore, an application is needed for teaching patients to gradually remove certain foods from their diets and replace them with better, healthier choices through the creation of new, personalized and creative recipes. These recipes will take patient metrics into consideration, thereby serving as a self-teaching tool for patients.
The digital kitchen is becoming a reality. The majority of consumers in the U.S. now use mobile food ordering tools. Mobile users are clearly looking for benefits to motivate them into transitioning their food ordering experience to smart phone applications (IAB, 2013).
Taking the above into consideration, it is a general object of the present invention to provide a method for creating a new food or drink recipe that decreases the iterative, time-consuming, and expensive character of creating new food or drink recipes.
Another general object of the present invention is to provide a method for creating a new food or drink recipe that decreases waste of ingredients, and/or decreases overstock, and/or optimizes the cost, profit or margin on a recipe, and/or optimizes the nutritional requirements of a recipe, and/or maximizes sustainability of a recipe, and/or maximizes/minimizes the quantity of certain ingredients in a recipe, and/or maximizes health benefits.
Further, a particular object of the present invention is to provide a method for creating a new food or drink recipe allowing cooks, consumers and cocktail makers and to find new combinations of ingredients with potential for being used in a recipe for an end product with desired characteristics, and to immediately develop the new combination up to the level of the final recipe.
In addition, it is also an object of the present invention to provide a computer implemented method and a system for creating a new food or drink recipe meeting the above objects.